Mark 7
7:1-23. The issue in this passage is ceremonialism, and what happens when the traditions of man are added to what God has commanded (key verses, 7-9,13). The Pharisees were applying priestly rules of purification to daily life, which God had not commanded. They even went beyond that in the example Jesus gives in 9-11. When legalism adds to God’s law, it always ends up setting aside God’s law in some way by substituting the word of man, and it grows and grows. This was a major issue of the Reformation.
The Pharisees had more regard for the symbols of moral purity (the dietary laws) than they did for the fact of moral purity (obedience to the spirit of the law). In the O.T. clean or unclean is not a quality of the food, but a ceremonial distinction. Even those distinctions given as commandments of God for the Jews to keep were not about the food itself (18-19). These things were intended to separate God’s people from the world. But the real separation should be the thoughts, words, and actions of a pure heart, not the distinctions of dietary regulations that symbolized it. Yet some of these things were commanded by God. Only God had the authority to lift these ceremonial commandments, which Jesus did without hesitation (19).
7:24-30. As is often the case, this passage further illustrates the teaching of the previous passage, though it may seem at first glance to be unrelated. Jesus is just beginning to break down what Paul would call “the barrier of the dividing wall,” contained in O.T. ordinances, which separated Jew from Gentile (Eph.2:14-15). It is one of the great themes of the entire N.T. E.g., see Acts 10:11-16, 28; Heb.7:18-19,22. What God has cleansed (Gentiles), no longer consider unholy.
7:31-37. Jesus does not need means to cure (29). So why does he use spittle to cure this man, and the blind man in 8:23? (Cf. John 9:6). Because what proceeds from his mouth has the power of re-creation. He makes all things new. As God’s Word, he does the will of the Father by the Father’s authority.